Reciprocating floor conveyors having a plurality of movable slats for conveying a load are now generally well known. They are used in a variety of applications and for conveying many different types of loads. Examples of reciprocating floor conveyors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,290, of Caughey, granted Sep. 16, 1975; U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,805, of Foster, granted Dec. 1, 1987; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,595, of Hallstrom, Jr., granted Feb. 18, 1992.
It has been discovered that reciprocating floor conveyors do not always function well when conveying palletized loads. With palletized loads, the pallets do not always remain balanced with their weight evenly distributed on the slats. The movable slats of a conveyor contact the bottom of the pallets at various contact points about the pallets, rather than uniformly across the bottom surface of the pallets. Unfortunately, the contact points are not always evenly distributed across the conveyor slats. As a result, the advancing conveyor slats do not always advance the pallets in a uniform manner, and the retracting conveyor slats sometimes catch the pallets and rotate them. This can cause the load to become stuck or blocked on the conveyor. Consequently, reciprocating floor conveyors do not always convey palletized loads in a reliable and controlled manner.
With non-palletized loads, such as bulk material and garbage, the distribution of the load remains relatively uniform across the conveyor slats and, thus, the conveyor slats can function to convey the load in a uniform, controlled manner. However, with palletized loads, especially with older, used pallets, which can become bent or warped, the pallets contact the movable slats at certain points non-uniformly distributed about the slats. As a result, the basic concept of reciprocating floor conveyors with movable slats--having more slats conveying the load than slats being retracted--does not always work to convey pallets and other similar type loads with fixed-form wide bases.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to address the problems associated with conveying palletized loads or the like using reciprocating floor conveyors having a plurality of movable slats.